Arielle Gold: Succeeding on snow and online

Arielle Gold is always on the move. As a professional athlete, she travels with the U.S. Snowboard Team to the southern hemisphere each fall for training and then competes all over the world from December to March, including the World Snowboarding Championships, Winter X Games, and the Winter Olympics.

This schedule doesn’t allow her to take college courses in a traditional way. In spite of her rigorous training and competition calendar, Arielle is pursuing an undergraduate degree at CU Boulder in Psychology using mostly online classes.

“I want to work on my education since I won’t be able to snowboard professionally forever,” said Arielle. “I want to make sure I’m always doing something to keep moving in the right direction. Online classes have always been a huge part of that for me.”

Arielle is enrolled in CU Boulder courses year round, but limits her load to two courses per semester to balance the demands of school with training and competition.

“Online classes can be challenging because you are relying on yourself to do the work,” she said. “You have to teach yourself the material. But the quality of the courses is great; access is easy, the video lectures are terrific, and my teachers are great at communicating with me. The experience feels very natural.”

Qualifying events for the 2018 Winter Olympics are just a few weeks away. Arielle will join an elite group of American snowboarders competing for the chance to represent the United States next February in PyeongChang. Nevertheless, she remains committed to her studies and her future beyond the slopes and halfpipe.

“I’d like to finish my bachelor’s degree while I’m still competing so I can simply transition to veterinary school when I’m done.”

Follow Arielle throughout the season on her Facebook page: @ArielleGoldSnowboarder.

Learn more about Continuing Education’s Online Credit program and course offerings.

Programs: CE Online Credit, Summer Session